A woman stands hunched at the front of the church, her
eyes tired. She teeters slightly and looks up weakly at the pastor in
front of her as he clasps her shoulders and shakes his head.
“Look at you, man,” he says. And then: “All pain will
leave your head right now.”
The woman stands expressionless. The congregation behind her is silent.
Moments later her head starts lolling slowly from side to side and then,
surprised, she quietly murmurs, “The pain is moving.”
Pastor Kobus van Rensburg steps slightly away and proclaims, “I
command the HIV virus (sic) to die!”
The woman suddenly sways backwards and her eyes start rolling.
Pastor Kobus pulls her forward, lets go of her arms and she walks along
the front of the church, her former frailty vanished and her hands covering
her mouth in disbelief. She looks up, falls to her knees and raises
her arms. From somewhere, music starts playing in the background…
And then it’s time for an ad break.
This is the Spirit Word Channel, the first Christian television channel
to broadcast from South Africa 24 hours a day. Officially launched in
July 2004 by the Spirit Word Ministry in Stilfontein in the North-West
Province, the channel broadcasts to selected African, European and Asian
countries. It can also be freely accessed via internet from anywhere
in the world.
“This,” they say in an informational brochure, “is
in accordance with Matthew 28:19, where we are commanded to go into
all the nations and teach the nations the word of God.”
If your DStv decoder is compatible, a simple setting can allow you to
tune into “quality Christian material” should you tire of
Series Channel re-runs or Gordon Ramsay’s repertoire of profanities
on BBC Food. Alternatively, the variety of programmes – from “anointed
teachings” to topical discussions and international talk shows
– can be accessed by buying a customised decoder.
“In South Africa the channel currently has approximately
one million viewers tuning in through their DStv decoders and about
70 000 houses with separate decoders,” says Anria Swanepoel, who
works in the Administration Office at the Spirit World Channel. “The
countries with the most viewers are Zimbabwe and Botswana.”
Anria says the main purpose of the channel is “to get people to
realise that God is bigger than the devil”. The channel not only
“reaches the unsaved” and converts many to Christianity,
she says, but also draws people to their ministry in Stilfontein, a
small mining town about 180 km south-west of Johannesburg, where the
channel’s final control centre is also situated.
The Spirit Word Ministry is headed up by Pastor Kobus,
and this large white building stands out starkly against an otherwise
arid and
uneventful landscape: Stilfontein, situated somewhere on the N12 between
Klerksdorp and Potchefstroom, is an unlikely setting for anything spectacular.
On the one side of the building looms a large white screen; a remnant
from the drive-in that made way for the church. On the other, a little
further off, is a mine dump.
There’s little else. But on the inside, in contrast to the nothingness
on the outside, the ministry reports itself to be remarkable. According
to their website, miracles were always evident in the Spirit Word Ministry
but the pheno-mena intensified after Pastor Kobus – also known
as Prophet and Teacher in his congregation – visited Prophet TB
Joshua in Nigeria five years ago.
“More than 5 000 cripples have miraculously thrown away their
crutches and stood up out of wheelchairs,” the website says. “Cancers
and HIV have become regular weekly healings.”
You can tune in to the Spirit Word Channel to see for yourself: the
Saturday services of “Worship, Word and Wonders” are broadcast
live and then edited and re-aired in hour and half-an-hour slots during
the week.
Pastor Kobus’s Sunday services are aired in a similar way.
Why?
“Because our vision was a television station,” Anria says.
Miracle meetings and sermons aside, Anria says the staff decide on the
rest of the programme schedule together “under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit”. An important duty, according to their website.
“It is the church’s responsibility to flood the airwaves
with the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ,” it says.
And so, you can catch a glimpse of Pastor Kobus tackling arthritis,
urinary tract infections, sinus and depression. Now, as programming
resumes, he’s walking along a row of congregation members, each
with some form of neck ailment, lined up in the front of the church.
He touches each for a moment on their forehead; some fall over backwards,
others clutch each other for support. “Your neck, your neck, your
neck,
your neck…” he repeats as he moves along… SMF